Friday, 30 April 2010

Expansion of the farm

You may remember the farm I had built for me in an earlier post, well, I've been inspired by a photo I came across to build a vineyard that will sit adjacent to it.

This photo which comes from Paul Darnell's Touching History blog shows the sort of thing I'm aiming to achieve. Bill Gaskin made the vineyards, terrain board and painted the figures - Paul made the hundred or so buildings.

The vineyard looks like quite a simple design. A large rectangular base with some stakes stuck in it with wire running between them. Then some trunks added and some foliage. Can't be too hard - can it?!

I've bought issue 1 and 2 of Paul's 'Touching History' scenery making guides in the hope something like this is covered. These books cover the Spanish Napoleonic period (don't worry - I'm not starting a new period!) and the English Civil War which will be helpful for my other project. I thought, as my Romans will mostly be fighting in a mediterranean environment, the Spanish scenery would be fairly similar and so this book would be useful!

Secundus! I had originally tried to commission a similar piece a couple of months before but it worked out too expensive. To my surprise, he listed four virtually identical pieces (which were what I had wanted commissioning) for sale on his site for £39 each! A much discounted rate than what I was expecting. I'm sure he could make you a copy for a similar price.